


Meatballs and bread sticks

by RedDaisies



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: A Lady And The Tramp-esque fic, Established Relationship, First Date, Fluffy, Kisses, M/M, Meatballs, Oneshot, ParkBarrow - Freeform, Pasta, breadsticks, cuteness, date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 09:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5411924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedDaisies/pseuds/RedDaisies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas and Andy go to an Italian restaurant</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meatballs and bread sticks

Thomas Barrow had always been one tempted by exotic culture, everything from fashion to food. The frank blandness of English food had never really interested him. After all there was only so much one can do to make stew seem exciting, so when Andy had suggested they visit the newly opened Italian, located in the maze of London’s back streets, he could hardly even think about dismissing the idea.

The family were dining out for the evening with some high status members of London society so the under butler and the footman's services wouldn’t be needed tonight. They took the opportunity to ask Carson for the night off, surprisingly he agreed to let them go as long as they were back before ten.

After changing into their second best suits, over coats and took a moment to fiddle with their hair in the mirror, checking everything was as it should, the two men met at the door. Before setting out across the city, guided by the streetlamps. They chatted as they walked two abreast, shoulder to shoulder. Both enjoying the stroll, which was helping them work up an appetite.

“I've never been to an Italian” said Andy, excitement obvious in his voice “have you?”

“Actually I haven’t either, but I've heard good things” replied Thomas honestly with a smile.

“Great, first time to an Italian and first time out together properly” grinned the curly haired man.

“I guess so” agreed Thomas, pulling a cigarette from the packet he had retrieved from his pocket, placing it between his lips and striking a match upon the box, proceeding to light it.

“Like we're walking out proper” continued Andy, nudging Thomas lovingly with his shoulder. Thomas frowned a little at this comment, blowing smoke out of his nostrils.

“We are walking out proper anyway, Andy, just cause we don't go out very often and people don’t know about it doesn’t mean we aren’t” retorted Thomas around his cigarette.

“I know, I'm sorry, I just thought-” Andy started, but was cut off Thomas putting his gloved hand on his upper arm.

“Don't be sorry, Andy” Thomas sighed with a smile, giving his lover’s arm a gentle reassuring squeeze. “It's not your fault they won’t accept us cause we're different”

“I don't bloody care if they like it or not” replied the footman with new found power and rebelliousness etched across his features. Thomas chuckled as he dropped his cigarette, crushing it out with the bottom of his shoe on the cobbled street. He liked to see some fire in his Andy now and again as the lad was usually so placid, it was a pleasant contrast.

“Glad to hear it” smiled Thomas as they turned a corner, into a small alley way, only wide enough for foot traffic.

Ahead was the Italian, it was a low, old building. A red canopy with words “Taste of Italy” in fancy golden script hooded the door, which was painted to match. The restaurant had large windows formed by a mosaic of smaller paned glass bowed with age. The warm candle light, which glowed from within making the establishment seem most inviting. They entered and were promptly greeted by a dashing young waiter.

“Good Evening, Gentleman” smiled the waiter brightly, looking from Andy to Thomas.

“What can I do for you this evening?”

“We would like a table for two please” replied Thomas confidently, to the relief of Andy, who had not wished to speak on his own to this stranger.

“Do you have a reservation?” questioned the waiter, quickly skimming through the bookings in the diary on the ornate stand.

“Erma no, we didn’t know we had to” answered Thomas, suddenly feeling at little anxious.

“Oh dear, well we are actually fully booked tonight” relied the waiter, returning his gaze back to the pair. Seeing the way their expressions fell. He was suddenly struck with an idea. “Although, you could always dine in the court yard”

“Courtyard?” puzzled Thomas “last like eat outside”

“Yes we have a courtyard out back that isn't really used, we could put you a table and chairs out there if you want. It is very common to eat outside at night in other countries.” The under butler pondered this idea for a moment and glanced at Andy, who nodded in approval.

“Courtyard will suit us fine”

“Excellent, sir” replied the waiter with a winning smile. “I will only be a moment”

A few minutes later the young man returned and asked them to follow him through into the court yard, which was actually more pleasant than they has excepted. It was fairly small and had the same cobbled surface as in the street, there were hanging baskets of sweet scented flowers hung around and a small varnished table, covered with a checked cloth, a candle and a vase with bread sticks inside it with two café chairs set opposite each other. The waiter ushered them towards the table, seating them, excused himself as he went to fetch menus. Thomas and Andy made themselves comfortable in their seats, removing their over coats and caps.

“Well this is nice” smiled, stretching his lanky legs so that they touched with Thomas’s, and enjoying the feeling of their calves touching.

“Very nice” agreed Thomas, lacing his fingers with Andy’s across the table. Andy then decided to investigate the mysterious bread sticks, picking one up between too fingers and looking at it as it was a creature from the lost world.

“Sure is weird isn’t it all this fancy foreign food” the footman commented as he sniffed the bread stick and giving it a testing lick. A surprised expression covering his face when he discovered it wasn’t actually too bad. Andy with sudden boldness dived in head first, biting off the end of the bread stick causing an audible crunch. Making noises of approval as he chewed, gaining a smile from Thomas, who then decided to treat himself to one.

“There alright these” said Andy going in for another. Thomas had to agree as he munched on his own. Suddenly the waiter appeared again, menus in hand as well a small note pad. He walked over to their table, placing the menus in front of them.

“I will be back to take your orders in a moment, would you care for something to drink? Wine maybe?”

“Yes bottle of house wine please” smiled Thomas. The waiter bowed his head a moment and headed back inside for the wine. The under butler scanned the menu reading descriptions of all the weird and wonderful food, trying to decide, which to try.

“Thomas” whispered the curly haired man, catching the attention of other man, who glanced up from the menu to meet Andy’s worried face.

“I can’t read any of it, Thomas” confessed Andy, flushing with embarrassment and shame. Of course thought Thomas internally scolding himself for forgetting that Andy, even though he was excelling in his learning of letters, still couldn’t read extensively and some of the words on the menu were testing for even Thomas, who was struggling with the strange lingo. Thomas squeezed Andy’s hand and smiled.

“It’s okay Andy, neither can I to be honest. I think I’ll try the spag-etti Bologn-ese whatever that is”

“Yeah let’s try that” agreed the footman, looking less worried and returning to his usual happy self. As if on que their waiter returned with their wine and a couple of glasses. Pouring them a glass each before setting the bottle down in a bucket of ice. It was strange for the pair to be the ones being served instead of serving.

“So are you ready to order, gentlemen?” asked the waiter, opening his note pad and pulling a small pencil from behind his ear.

“Erm yes, can we the spag-etti Bologn-ese, please” replied Thomas, internally cringing at his own awful pronunciation and only ordering one portion for them to share in case they disliked it. The waiter simply nodded and scribbled on his pad.

“Would you like meatballs with that?” Thomas who was currently taking a sip of his wine, suddenly choked causing him to cough a few times.

“Ex-cuse-e me?”

“Would you like meatballs with your spaghetti?” repeated the waiter looking slightly puzzled at the under butler.

“Yes, we would thank you” answered Andy quickly with a smile to relieve some pressure off a still recovering Thomas. With a quick confused glance between the two men the waiter collected up the menus and left. As soon as he was out of sight, Andy was up out of his chair and at Thomas’s side rubbing his back in gentle clock wise circles.

“Are you okay?” asked the younger man

“Yes I think so” sighed Thomas regaining some composure. “What the hell is a meatball?”

Andy shrugged his shoulders as he retook up his seat and took a swig of his wine. Thomas did the same, still confused.

“But seriously what is a meatball?” pressed Thomas “It sounds a bit you know”

“Wrong” snorted Andy with a dirty mischievous smirk.

“Well yeah”

“Think you need to get your mind out of the gutter, Mister Barrow” mocked the footman, grinning even wider.

“Me get mine out? You thought it too” retorted Thomas with a laugh. “Only because I have been corrupted by you and your dirty thoughts” laughed Andy.

“My dirty thoughts? I think you should hear that dirty mouth of yours, Andy Parker. The things you say in the heat of the moment would make your grandmother turn in her grave” Thomas chuckled, draining his glass and grabbing the bottle to refill it. Andy blushed slightly at this, Thomas smiled triumphantly knowing very well that he had won that one.

The waiter re-entered the court yard followed by a younger companion no older than a hallboy carrying a steaming plate and a small wicker basket. The servers placed the plate and basket upon the table, asked if the pair wanted anything else. Thomas politely declined and the servers returned from whence they came. Both men stared at the contents of the plate in front of them.

The aroma was mouth-watering, but the actual food it’s self was not very aesthetically pleasing. Red sauce combined with worm like strips of what was apparently known as pasta. As well as large chunks of meat, which they assumed must be the meatballs. The basket they has also been given contain hot bread with garlic paste and butter lathered on it. Andy tucked into the garlic bread, leaning across with a piece in hand and putting it to Thomas’s lips, Thomas took a bite, chewed and nodded in approval surprised at how extremely moreish the bread was.

“That smells great” commented the footman licking his lips and tucking his napkin in his shirt collar before gathering up his knife and fork, eager to try the pasta. Thomas mirror the younger man’s actions and then he had a strange epiphany. He didn’t know how to go about eating the strange food, furring his eyebrows together and attempting to spears something through the method of wildly stabbing. Hearing the sound of chuckling coming from his companion, Thomas looked up to see the younger lad putting a mouth full of spaghetti between his lips, the proceeded to pull the utensil back out. The under butler raised an eye brow and threw Andy a questioning look.

“How? Did you?”

“I stuck it and twizzled” replied the footman as he chewed and swallowed.

“Twizzled? What does that mean?” Andy sighed, taking his fork and “twizzled” it in the pasta, both watching as the pasta gathered around the fork. He then lifted to his mouth triumphantly and ate it.

Thomas then attempted to cope Andy’s technique and failed. Resorting to drastic action the under butler then leaned as close to the plate as possible, took his fork and knife, scooped the pasta up holding it in place with his knife and tried to eat it. It wasn’t as graceful as Andy’s way, but it worked. Thomas, enjoying the taste, continued at the pasta like this, learning quickly that slurping up the long strands was the easiest way.

He was slurping a particularly long strand when he felt it become slightly taught at the other end, he looked up to see that Andy was on the other end of the pasta strand staring directly at the under butler. Their eyes made steady contact, they stilled their actions a moment. Thomas made the first move and slurped up a few inches of pasta, setting the unspoken challenge into motion. Andy reacted by slurping up the pasta too. Both slurping inch after inch either willing to back down till there was a clatter of teeth and lips, which quickly became a long tomato flavoured kiss.

When they broke apart at last the two simply smiled at each other, pink dusting both their cheeks. They got round to eating the dreaded meatballs and found them actually quite delicious, they ate in pleasant silence for the rest of the meal till the plate was barren apart from a lone meat ball.

“You have it” said Andy politely gesturing to the meatball even though he stared at it longingly. Thomas noticing the look, shook his head and nudged the meatball over to Andy’s side of the plate.

“No you have it. You’ll enjoy it more” smiled the under butler.

“Thank you” blushed the footman, taking the meatball on his fork and popping it into his mouth and chewing happily. That was one thing Thomas loved about Andy among everything else, the way he ate it was always slightly comical. The older man wasn’t really sure why that was the case maybe it was something to do with Andy’s extremely expressive facial expressions.

“I think I’d rather like to visit Italy one day” mused Andy, sipping his wine.

“I’m sure you will get to go many places in your lifetime” replied Thomas.

“Only if you go too. I wouldn’t want to anywhere that was away from you” stated the curly haired man, this made Thomas’s heart melt and his head turn all soppy.

“Where ever you go I promise I will follow” He vowed, relishing the sincerely happy expression, which danced upon his lover’s face.

It was getting late as they finished the last of the wine, settled the bill of which Thomas insisted on paying the whole thing claiming it was “his treat” with much protest from Andy. They ended the slight disagreement with the promise that next time they went out from dinner Andy would pay. Finally, setting back off to the London house. It was a lot quieter than earlier meaning that Andy and Thomas could openly walk hand in hand along the darken streets without too much worry.

“We have to do that again sometime, Thomas”

“Indeed, it was lovely”

“Our first proper date” cooed Andy, squeezing Thomas’s hand slightly.

“First of many I hope” smiled Thomas, returning the hand squeeze and rubbing his thumb in a circular motion on the back of Andy’s hand.

“I hope so too” giggled the footman as he placed a kiss on Thomas’s cheek.

Thomas stopped dead and pulled Andy into a proper full kiss, all tongue and lip. Arms entangled around each other’s waists. Eventually, breaking for breathe, pressing their foreheads together, panting slightly. Just two figures embracing in a lamp lit street.

“I love you so much, Andy”

“I love you too, Thomas”

After another goodnight kiss at the door, both went contently to bed. Heads filled with dreams of traveling, exotic food, dates and the many adventures they had yet to come. Neither one of them able to imagine their future without the each other.


End file.
